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‘Father deacon! Reverend sir! My good soul!’ we heard a subdued but insistent whisper, ‘they say you’ve a devilish good voice; honour us with a song, strike up: “We live among the fields!”‘

‘Sh! sh!… Shut up there!’ passed over the lips of the guests.

…’Plunged all her devoted family,’ pursued Mr. Ratsch, turning a severe glance in the direction of the lover of music, ‘plunged all her family into the most irreplaceable grief! Yes!’ cried Ivan Demianitch, ‘well may the Russian proverb say, “Fate spares not the rod.”…’

‘Stop! Gentlemen!’ shouted a hoarse voice at the end of the table, ‘my purse has just been stolen!…’

‘Ah, the swindler!’ piped another voice, and slap! went a box on the ear.

Heavens! What followed then! It was as though the wild beast, till then only growling and faintly stirring within us, had suddenly broken from its chains and reared up, ruffled and fierce in all its hideousness. It seemed as though every one had been secretly expecting ‘a scandal,’ as the natural outcome and sequel of a banquet, and all, as it were, rushed to welcome it, to support it…. Plates, glasses clattered and rolled about, chairs were upset, a deafening din arose, hands were waving in the air, coat-tails were flying, and a fight began in earnest.

‘Give it him! give it him!’ roared like mad my neighbour, the fishmonger, who had till that instant seemed to be the most peaceable person in the world; it is true he had been silently drinking some dozen glasses of spirits. ‘Thrash him!…’

Who was to be thrashed, and what he was to be thrashed for, he had no idea, but he bellowed furiously.

The police superintendent’s assistant, the officer of roads and highways, and Mr. Ratsch, who had probably not expected such a speedy termination to his eloquence, tried to restore order… but their efforts were unavailing. My neighbour, the fishmonger, even fell foul of Mr. Ratsch himself.

‘He’s murdered the young woman, the blasted German,’ he yelled at him, shaking his fists; ‘he’s bought over the police, and here he’s crowing over it!!’

At this point the waiters ran in…. What happened further I don’t know; I snatched up my cap in all haste, and made off as fast as my legs would carry me! All I remember is a fearful crash; I recall, too, the remains of a herring in the hair of the old man in the smock, a priest’s hat flying right across the room, the pale face of Viktor huddled up in a corner, and a red beard in the grasp of a muscular hand…. Such were the last impressions I carried away of the ‘memorial banquet,’ arranged by the excellent Sigismund Sigismundovitch in honour of poor Susanna.

After resting a little, I set off to see Fustov, and told him all of which I had been a witness during that day. He listened to me, sitting still, and not raising his head, and putting both hands under his legs, he murmured again, ‘Ah! my poor girl, my poor girl!’ and again lay down on the sofa and turned his back on me.

A week later he seemed to have quite got over it, and took up his life as before. I asked him for Susanna’s manuscript as a keepsake: he gave it me without raising any objection.

XXVIII

Several years passed by. My aunt was dead; I had left Moscow and settled in Petersburg. Fustov too had moved to Petersburg. He had entered the department of the Ministry of Finance, but we rarely met and I saw nothing much in him then. An official like every one else, and nothing more! If he is still living and not married, he is, most likely, unchanged to this day; he carves and carpenters and uses dumb-bells, and is as much a lady-killer as ever, and sketches Napoleon in a blue uniform in the albums of his lady friends. It happened that I had to go to Moscow on business. In Moscow I learned, with considerable surprise, that the fortunes of my former acquaintance, Mr. Ratsch, had taken an adverse turn. His wife had, indeed, presented him with twins, two boys, whom as a true Russian he had christened Briacheslav and Viacheslav, but his house had been burnt down, he had been forced to retire from his position, and worst of all, his eldest son, Viktor, had become practically a permanent inmate of the debtors’ prison. During my stay in Moscow, among a company at a friendly gathering, I chanced to hear an allusion made to Susanna, and a most slighting, most insulting allusion! I did all I could to defend the memory of the unhappy girl, to whom fate had denied even the charity of oblivion, but my arguments did not make much impression on my audience. One of them, a young student poet, was, however, a little moved by my words. He sent me next day a poem, which I have forgotten, but which ended in the following four lines: